As everyone knows, Uncle Richard LOVED to tell stories. From the time he returned from his "nomadic days" wandering across the United States in 1980, I remember him coming over to our house and sitting at the table to tell stories. We would sit there for hours listening to him. (***Disclaimer: These are my memories of the stories he told, as best I can remember, but as we all know, HE MAY HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS UP!***) Uncle Richard took college courses all across the nation. Wherever he landed, he took a course. At one point, he stopped in Tallahassee, FL and took art courses at Florida State. The way he paid for the courses at FSU was by attending Florida A&M, which is a historically black college, so they paid him to go there as a minority and one of a hand full of white students at the time. His art teacher at FSU was amazed by his knowledge and use of color and asked how many other art classes he had taken. He explained that this was his first college class. Then he proceeded to go into a story that went something like this: "Well, you see, I grew up on a farm in Mississippi, and every fall it was time to slaughter the pigs for food. Mama would take us out to barn and we would cut the pigs throats. We would then hang the pigs up to drain the blood and skin them. We were poor folks, so we had to use every part of the pig in order to survive. We kids would follow Mama and take the pigs to the sun baked side of the barn. Mama would take the first intestine in both hands and swing it over her head like a lasso and pop it like a whip. (He made the motions as he spoke.) The crap from the intestines would splatter on the sun baked side of the barn. It was like a color pallet of yellow corn, white oats, red blood, green bile... every color of the rainbow in a beautiful display on the faded paint of the sun baked side for the barn. Then one by one, each of us children would try to swing and snap, but none of us were as good as Mama. After a day of slinging chitterlings the sun baked side of the barn looked like a painting, and that is how I learned my use of color. " He said the other students in his class sat wide eyed and quiet, in shock at his demonstration and description of barbaric country living. He said that he made the whole story up on the fly, but never let on to his teacher or the students that it was anything but 100% truth. As he said, "There is nothing wrong with "leg pullin'." The difference in "leg pullin'" and lying is that lying has malicious intent, where "leg pullin' " is strictly for entertainment!" Another one of his favorite sayings was "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story!" So here my friends, you have the first of MANY wonderful stories from Uncle Richard. I miss you, your humor, and your magic!
Shannon Outlaw-Kimsey
8/7/2011
Love it!
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